


Can't go back to yesterday

by von_gikkingen



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Blackmail, F/M, Fake Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-23 17:41:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20012263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/von_gikkingen/pseuds/von_gikkingen
Summary: There are… conventions. You have to leave your conscience at home to attend them.





	Can't go back to yesterday

There are… conventions. You have to leave your conscience at home to attend them.

Because when you go you are going to end up making deals.

You will end up agreeing to manufacture goods and sell those goods to people and then you can never let yourself think too hard about what those goods will do when they’re used. You are only allowed to think about how much money you’ll be making for your employers. _That_ is all you can allow to matter…

I always assumed it’ll be during one of those that I’ll have my moment. The moment I’ve been postponing for years now. An epiphany to do with the fact Stark Industries were not paying me well enough for me to keep doing this to myself. That I got a little too good at leaving my conscience at home and I had to do something about it before there was no longer anything to leave home. Before I became exactly as inhuman as these hard-eyed men I’ve been dealing with.

I really believed that was how my story would go. That one day I’ll decide to prioritize my soul over my bonus and Obadiah Stane will have my letter of resignation on his table the very day.

And somehow here I was again, drinking to steady my nerves as I heard the familiar “Hey, gorgeous.”

“Fuck off, Ulysses,” I say not even bothering to turn his way.

He just laughs, never having expected anything else from me.

We’ve been playing this game for a couple of years now and he never passed up the chance to let me know he had a lot of appreciation for what he saw. Because what woman doesn’t like to be openly objectified…?

“You’re starting the party early,” he comments as he joins me at the bar. I ignore him, finishing my whiskey in one quick swallow and ordering a refill in the next breath.

“So let’s hear it,” I say when a new glass is placed in front of me. “One of those comments you always make. The propositions you phrase so no woman in possession of even a trace of self-respect can respond to them with anything other than a restraining order. I’d love hearing something like that. It really would hit the spot right about now…”

He just laughs again, but… No, it’s not just amusement I see in his eyes as I glance at him. And I _know_ – I just made a mistake.

I must have said the wrong thing, must have done something to make him stop seeing something he’d love to get his hands on and instead seeing a person. With weaknesses that might be exploited, he clearly suspects. Because he would. That is all he ever looks for in people.

And I have to suppress a shiver as I wonder… Am I doing a good enough job of hiding it? What makes me different from who I was last time he saw me? Am I managing to keep him from seeing me for someone with a secret? One that’ll get me killed as soon as Stane finds out I know what people he’s been selling to while Tony Stark was too busy living the billionaire playboy life to care…

“You okay?”

“What?” I blink in surprise. Because I can’t tell if the tone of concern I hear in his voice is the real thing. Everything I know about him tells me it can’t possibly be. _And yet_ … “I’m fine. I…”

“Don’t lie,” he says and his tone adds _it’s not your forte._ “Something’s really wrong, isn’t it…?”

I don’t know what to say to that. I hate when he makes me remember that he’s far more observant than anyone would expect someone like him to be. He doesn’t miss things because in his line of work – in _our_ line of work – it would be the last thing he did.

“Wrong?” I say, taking a sip from my drink. “Besides the fact that I’m yet again in a room full of arms dealers because when I’m making stupid carrier decisions I _really_ go for it…?”

“Only carrier decisions?” he says, raising an eyebrow.

And that’s all he has to say because, yeah, I know that if I want to make a different kind of stupid decision he’s right here. I put the glass down because I obviously overdid it. This conversation really is the final proof of that. 

I revealed too much and there will be no taking it back and I know he is quite possibly the worst person to reveal anything to. There is ruthlessness to him that makes no secret of the fact that, like it or not, you will be used if ever you let him find a single thing he can hold over you. “Well, this was as lovely as ever,” I say with a wry smile and get up. And I’m not all that steady on my feet. Which is by no means a plot twist considering how much I had to drink.

And when he reaches out a hand to help me keep my balance I’m almost grateful.

That doesn’t mean I like the way he looks at me. No, I don’t think I ever liked it less.

…

It shook me. I was never in denial about who it was I worked for and what was it we did and no, the fact we were military contractors never made the slightest bit of difference. We were still very much what was wrong with the world and I wasn’t fine with it. It was just that I could do some quick edits to my moral code when required. It was horrible but it _was_ a skill I possessed.

I just wasn’t as good at it as I thought I was...

I found that out about myself only weeks ago, when all those business trips to the Middle East Obadiah took crossed the line from _probably nothing_ to _definitely suspicious_.

And then I started looking into things… and then I started wishing I didn’t…

Which is how I find myself sitting in my hotel room in the dark, too troubled by my inner turmoil to even bother pretending I might be able to sleep. Unable to stop wondering about how much time I have left. Because this is the kind of thing people got killed over. Even if I had no intention of talking, even if the word _whistleblower_ wasn’t a part of my vocabulary… Like it or not these were probably my last few days – and I was spending them with arms dealers. Because if I could just keep up the pretence there’s nothing wrong, that it’s business as usual, maybe...

When the knock on the door comes I’m expecting the worst. Then, remembering that no hired assassin would bother to knock I get up and unsteadily cross the room.

And seeing who it is that thinks three a. m. is a good time to come pay me a visit I find I’d prefer a hitman. “What do you think you’re...?” I start.

“I don’t need to know what it is. Just tell me if you think he’d kill you for knowing it,” he says, not letting me finish. And I can’t breathe for a moment. Then, as I open my mouth to answer, he just shakes his head to let me know not to bother, he already read the answer in my face. “So that’s a yes…” he utters under his breath, sounding anything but surprised.

He walks past me into the room and it never occurs to me to stop him. I just close the door and turn to face him. “I think we have some business to discuss,” he tells me.

“We do?”

“You’re going to need a new identity and I don’t think you have any idea where to start looking for people who can provide you with one. I do. More importantly I know how to…”

“Fake my death,” I say, catching up to what he’s offering. “It would have to be very convincing.”

“It will be.”

And why do I believe him? Am I really that desperate for hope, any hope, however fleeting…?

“Why would you help me…?”

“Do you really want to hear me say it out loud?” he says and he sounds genuinely curious for a moment there.

And do I? Do I need to hear it? It’s been so obvious for so long. That he indulges all his appetites any chance he gets and he was always looking for a chance to get me into this position. To get me desperate enough to agree to anything. And I have to ask myself - _how much I want to live?_

The answer doesn’t surprise, not really. Not after the years I spent being able to get my moral compass to point wherever I needed it to. His price? I’ll pay it.

And I might live to regret it – but I will _live_.

…

I quickly calculate the time difference and then decide it’s okay to do it now. To make the call. To force myself to sound calm and casual as I tell Obadiah Stane that this place, this small country that happens to have both no extradition treaties and rather lovely beaches, has grown on me and I might feel tempted to stay for the rest of the week. If that’s alright with him, that is.

And hearing him say that that’s fine, I can take the next week off too if I like the place so much, I have been working so hard lately, after all... It makes my blood run cold. Because he sounds like he means it when he adds he worries about me...

I force a laugh and thank him and end the call before I can no longer hold the phone in my shaking hands.

 _He has no idea_ , I realized in the last minute. He really doesn’t know that I discovered the truth.

Which means I’m safe. _For now._

And in a few days’ time, after my tragic, but not too suspicious accidental death, I would be even safer. From Stane, anyway...

Now that that’s done, now that I made it through that step, I let myself curl up on the bed. Not because I believe I’ll be able to sleep now, merely so I’m more comfortable as I watch the thin slice of the sky I can see in the gap between the curtains.

I watch it for what must be hours. Watch the color of it pale, an eternity later, feeling very strange about what my mind is doing. Because my thoughts fit together _wrong_ all of a sudden. I feel myself slipping into some kind of internal twilight zone. Coming undone in ways I couldn't put into words if I tried. And I feel myself being put together again, too. I don't know how to describe it, this thing that's happening inside my mind, the mind that no doubt finally snapped under the strain. All I know with any certainty, is that it makes the idea of the coming day less scary.

My birthday, I realize.

Whoever I’m about to become, whatever name will my new passport tell me I’m now called, this is first day of the rest of her life. And all that needs to happen now is for me to die, here in this tropical paradise so far from home. To die and be reborn and, oh yes, pay the devil his due before either can happen.

There is a knock on the door.

I let out a shaky breath and get up to let him in.

…

He tells me things, important things, about how we’re going to make it look like an accident, about what mistakes I can’t afford to make once I become someone else. He tells me everything I might possibly need to know. They’re all such crucial things, things I can’t afford to forget, and so I listen. Hang on his every word. And while I do that I don’t have to notice how much of my clothes has he slowly removed while he was telling me all this.

And now I’m standing here in just my underwear and he suddenly grows quiet. Maybe he’s just out of things to say. And I don’t like this, I really don’t. The way nothing is happening. I can’t bear that. So I kiss him, tentatively, just to be doing something.

And I _really_ don’t like what happens next. I don’t like how fast I stop being tentative about things. I don’t like that I feel his hands on my shoulders as he tries to push me away – _and I fight him on it…_

Because I _don’t_ want to stop.

“What the hell just… happened…?” I whisper as I raise my shaking hand to my lips. And I really need an answer because this wasn’t me. I would never have done that. I would never have forgotten so easily that this was happening because I owed him, because he _owned me_ , because he decided to exploit the first weakness I showed in years.

I knew what this was. I couldn’t have possibly desired _this_.

But when he nods toward the bed to let me know I want to get on it I almost hurry to comply, removing my bra as I go.

“It’s because you’re dead,” I hear him say and it seems such an out of nowhere comment. And then I remember I did ask a question.

Apparently he had an answer…

I wait to hear the rest of it, raising myself up on my elbows in an unspoken need to negate something of the distance between us, not liking that he just stands there, looming over me.

“You knew that if you wanted to survive the person you were had to die. I didn’t expect you to be this fast about killing her,” he comments and there’s something like grudging respect in his eyes for a moment there.

“It was a mercy kill. If I wouldn’t someone else would.”

I didn’t know I was going to say that, not until the words were already out of my mouth, but they ring true. Something happened to me during the dark hours I spent waiting for this morning to come. Something happened in my mind and it made me a stranger to myself.

What happened in the darkness of this room in those unspeakably long hours was a kind of wake. A funeral for everything I used to be.

Including, it seemed, the vague disgust I always felt towards him. The tattoos, the glint of gold in his smile, the eyes that looked at the world and saw only things he wanted and would take because it was not in his nature to know restraint. There was something less than civilized about him, always. Like he was made for another era, when world was old and his kind of ruthlessness was the rule not the exception. Recognizing that in him as soon as I first saw him I always knew to keep my distance. And I managed for so long. And now that was no longer an option and it felt like it was probably for the best that the woman that would flinch at his touch was now gone. As dead as if someone put a bullet in her head.

And _I_ was here now.

And no, I didn’t know what that meant. Someone very different from who I was just yesterday, I knew that much, but… no, I knew no real details. Nothing like an answer to _who the hell am I then?_

And in the next moment I _do_ know. Because in the next moment he decides that would be enough talking, he’s getting what he came for and then he’s on top of me and…

And I know who I am.

I know a few small things about myself and they’re not a lot but it’s a start. I know I’m someone who’ll help him out of his clothes when I feel he’s not doing so quickly enough for my taste. I’m someone who will slap his hand away if I don’t like where it is and what it’s doing. Someone who can say the words “Let me go on top” out loud, feeling no embarrassment about it. Who will fight and _will_ bite until…

“Better,” I grin when he finally realizes this is not up for negotiation and rolls over onto his back. And when the look on his face tells me that he really didn’t expect certain things to happen that fast I have to laugh. Laughter that trails off into a contented sigh as I start moving my hips.

“Who _are you_ …?” he says and there’s a hint of amusement in his voice and that’s another thing on the list. Another thing I’m apparently now capable of.

I can share a joke with him. Actually make that momentary human connection. As long as I’ve known him he never passed up a chance to say something crude and on some levels just truly horrible and yet, right now, I can look back at those things and actually laugh.

“It’s like the invasion of the body snatchers,” he mutters, his dark eyes too amused for the words to mean a genuine complaint.

“Ulysses…?”

“Yes?” he says, the hand he’s resting on my breast taking a firmer hold for just a second and as I shudder with the sensation.

“Shut up.”

He does and I get back to doing what I’m doing. And I do it harder and more fervently, digging my nails into his chest, loving it, loving being the one in control…

“You’re an animal,” I hear him say and there is a quality to his voice that tells me he’s so lost in the sensation that saying even those few words took effort.

And I know why he did it, too. Just to see how I’d react. Because there’s no insult in what he said. He’s describing me. Telling me what I am in this moment, having forgotten constraints placed on me by the need to be civilized and now I’m just a living thing ruled by cravings and dark, primal emotions and…

“Wanna try that again…?” I say breathlessly. “This time maybe say it like you actually mind…”

“ _You_ ,” he says, surprising me by digging his fingers into my hips to hold me in place and sitting up to bring us face to face, “are feral.”

“I _know_ ,” I reply, letting out a breath and feeling a wonderful kind of freedom floods me at the admission.

I can feel him starting to move inside me again and the noise that escapes me is a lot louder than I thought it would be. He laughs, clearly pleased with himself over getting that reaction out of me. I sink my teeth into his shoulder to make him cut it out. And then we’re moving again, responding to one another, and it’s so easy to give myself into the sensation that feels like it might never end. No, I haven’t lost a thing because I can no longer go back to yesterday. I don’t miss that very different person I was then. I like being this person, this wild thing ruled by lust.

I’m loving everything I gained by letting the old me die. May she rest in peace – but _never_ come back…

…

I die on Friday.

I know the exact time of death and nothing at all about the girl whose body is being sent to states for my few distant relatives to bury.

I don’t want to know about her. The person I am now doesn’t ask those kinds of questions and doesn’t agonize about just how wrong it is to let this happen. Too busy enjoying the fact I get to keep breathing to ponder just how much of a monster I’ve become overnight.

I could have done something – made some effort to make sure Stark’s missiles stopped ending up in the hands of terrorists. But it was simply not my problem. It was not something I was willing to risk my life for, not now, not when I felt more alive than I ever had before. I wanted to spend my days laughing and making terrible decisions about terrible men and forever looking over my shoulder in fear of retribution was just _not_ on the agenda.

“Tell me again why this is a good idea?” I ask then, my eyes never leaving the expanse of dark water I can see from the plane’s window.

“Would anyone ever think to look for you here? As far as anyone knows you only know, what, one South African? And you couldn’t stand him, last I checked,” he says and I chuckle.

“Yeah… I may have described you as _somehow the worst of them and how do you even pull that off_? On record. To people,” I say, trying to look apologetic about it and probably not succeeding. “And it’s not like I didn’t have a point.”

“Which makes this a plot twist no one would ever buy.”

“That’s because it’s a little out of character,” I say as I turn to him, leaning closer so I can press my lips against the brand on the side of his neck. “Well… _a lot_ out of character.”

I don’t have to say the rest. That it wasn’t such a great character. That it needed some serious rewrites. Some kind of arc that would take that calm and controlled professional and turn her into someone…

Someone I have a lot more fun being for what it’s worth. And right now I really can’t bring myself to care about anything else. Because this chapter of my life felt better than all the previous ones put together and I found I deserved this. I deserved to be someone feeling this much at home in my own skin. This content, even though my life was slowly but surely becoming far more dangerous than it ever was before.

The contentment lay in the certainty I’ll die and it’ll be before I was ready and it really was unavoidable. Because if I was being honest with myself – and I found these days I could be nothing less than that – I didn’t really mind how I already knew this story would end. Because being killed over association with someone I got to have amazing, exhausting sex with beat being killed by my greedy megalomaniac of a boss because I knew too much any day.


End file.
